The mass spectra of heavy and light mesons is computed within the framework of the relativistic flux tube model. A good agreement with the experimental data is obtained provided that the flux tube contributions, including retardation and spin-orbit effects, are supplemented by a one-gluon-exchange potential, a quark self-energy term, and instanton-induced interactions. No arbitrary constant is needed to fit the absolute scale of the mass spectra, and the different parameters are fitted on lattice QCD to strongly restrict the arbitrariness of our model. The relevance of the present approach is discussed in the case of glueballs, and the glueball spectrum we compute is compared to the lattice QCD one. Finally, we make connections between the results of our model and the nature of some newly discovered experimental states such as the $f_0(1810),X(3940)$, and $Y(3940)$.

• Received 8 May 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.76.025206